A Quantitative and Qualitative Research on the Long-Term Effectiveness of Early English Language Instruction

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The study was conducted by employing both quantitative and qualitative methods for several years at the same public junior high school to investigate on the long-term effectiveness of primary school English activities. The 2012 grade seven students, who received primary English instruction earliest from their grade one (in total 130hours), were expected to achieve highest test scores. However, they were outperformed by the 2009 grade 7 students, who started English from their grade four (in total 90 hours) in all aspects of the tests. This result suggests given lowering the starting grade of English instruction, it does not contribute the betterment of English skills of junior high school students because of the limited English class hours. As for the motivational scores, they did not change overtime. In a semi-structured interview, junior high students often referred to primary school English activities as fun, however they did not remember well what they did.